A. Growth of Mobile Communications.
In recent years, cellular or personal communication service type mobile devices have emerged as a must-have appliance among mobile professionals and consumers alike, growing in popularity every year since they were first introduced. The public has come to accept that mobile communication service enhances business and personal communications and may contribute to personal security. Consequently, mobile communication is becoming increasingly popular. Although originally designed and deployed to offer voice-grade telephone services, more recently the mobile stations and the networks that provide service through them have offered an expanding array of data communication services and other related services.
Manufacturers have developed wireless devices, such as cellular telephones, with increasing processing power, fast approaching the computing capabilities of devices such as personal computers and personal digital assistants (“PDAs”). Because of this increased processing power, mobile stations actually can be programmed to perform a wide range of application functions, for example related to tools for productivity enchantment, gaming, entertainment and the like.
B. Native Applications.
A wireless carrier typically has at least two types of applications resident on the mobile station: native applications and platform based applications. There are many applications developed by Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs) for the wireless carrier that run natively or directly on the mobile station hardware and operating system. For example, a Short Message Service (SMS) application (or “client”) allows a user to send text messages, and a Multimedia Message Service (MMS) application (or “client”) allows the user to send picture messages. These are known as “native applications.”
C. Platform Based Applications.
Mobile station hardware may be proprietary, and some associated software (such as a mobile operating system) may also be proprietary. Further, the exact hardware and software may change from one mobile station to another mobile station. Thus, it is convenient to have a software platform (or interface or shell) that resides logically between, and provides a standardized interface between the mobile station hardware and mobile station operating system on one hand, and third party applications on the other hand. The software platform typically is a published standard. As a result, virtually any software developer (a third party, or a value added services provider) can write application programming for the software platform, and the application program will run properly on all mobile stations implementing the software platform. A software platform may be implemented as an “Application Program Interface” (API). Different versions of the software platform may be designed for different models of mobile stations, thus providing a standard interface for the third party application.
Qualcomm applications, for example, typically utilize the Binary Runtime Environment for Wireless (“BREW”) platform or API. BREW was developed by Qualcomm, and resides between the chip system software and a third party platform application, making the mobile station functionality available to the platform application without requiring the third party developer to have the chip system source code or even a direct relationship with a device manufacturer. In this way, third party developers are able to rapidly develop a wide variety of small, transportable applications in familiar programming languages such as C and C++. For example, Verizon Wireless subscribers are able to download these third party platform applications over the Verizon Wireless network, and run them on any BREW-enabled mobile station. Alternatively, Java 2 Platform, Micro Edition (J2METM) is another runtime environment targeted to a wide range of consumer products, which some cellular telephone developers are utilizing as a standardized API.
In this written description, Verizon Wireless will be used as an exemplary wireless carrier, BREW will be used as an exemplary platform, and “Goodpictures” will be used as an exemplary, and imaginary, third party application for running on the platform.
Thus, for example, a Goodpictures application may utilize a BREW platform to operate on a mobile station subscribing to Verizon. However, one of ordinary skill in the art will be enabled to use the disclosed invention for other applications, other platforms, and other wireless carriers. Many third party applications are deployed on the mobile station as BREW clients, or platform applications. For example, Goodpictures may handle pictures on a mobile station. These are known as “BREW applications.”
D. Brew Application Communications.
Today, applications running on a BREW platform send and receive multimedia messages using a direct Internet Protocol (IP) connection to a third party website or web server, much like a web browsing application. For example, if a user wants to send a picture from the mobile station to a Goodpictures website, or retrieve a picture from the Goodpictures website to the mobile station, the user must use http protocol to communicate with the Goodpictures website via the wireless carrier data network. Users of Goodpictures may be billed a monthly recurring charge or may have to purchase pre-pay for number of uses. Any interactions with the website using a browser on the phone may also be billed according to the user's billing plan airtime or data usage.
Additionally, BREW has a protocol to send application directed messages from a network server to a mobile station, and from a mobile station to a network server.
BREW application users may be subject to a monthly recurring charge or a per-use fee. However, there is no clean real time transaction based billing model for such message transactions. Thus, users may be forced to prepay for uses. For example, a BREW ringtone application requires prepayment. Additionally, the direct IP connection to a third party service has negative security implications for the carrier.
To offer product software downloading as a commercial service, the carrier or a third party vendor or the platform developer (such as Qualcomm) operates an application download server (ADS) on a packet-switched data network, which is accessible by a data call from a compatible mobile station. In general, a user having a mobile station with a platform and having subscribed to the download service initiates a data call through the network to the ADS. After log-in, the station receives and displays one or a series of menus listing available applications. The user views the list of available applications and makes a selection, which the mobile station communicates through the network to the ADS server. The server then transmits the selected application through the network to the mobile station, and the mobile station stores the new program in memory. Subsequently, the processor of the mobile station calls-up and executes the downloaded application program using the API, for example, allowing the user to play a new game on the mobile station.
Based on these platforms, a number of the carriers, vendors and third parties are now offering application downloading as an additional pay service, through the wireless networks. Mobile station users can customize their wireless telephones through the selective downloading of applications of interest, such as games, printed media, stock updates, news, or any other type of information or application that is available for download through the wireless network. The user pays for the downloaded software as well as any airtime used for the download. Many of the applications, such as games and calendar programs, are run on the mobile station off-line, without ongoing communications through the wireless network. Some of the downloaded applications, however, stock or news update routines for example, use the communication capabilities of the mobile station and the network to implement at least some ongoing application functionality.
One problem with BREW is that there is no way that messages to or from a BREW application on the mobile station can be sent through the MMS infrastructure on the wireless carrier network. Conventionally, there is no way to avoid BREW related royalties or fees to QUALCOMM for BREW application messages. This invention provides a way to send messages to or from a BREW application on the mobile station through the MMS infrastructure on the wireless carrier network.
E. Brew Application Billing Models.
There are three different (nonexclusive) billing models that are presently supported for BREW applications: a) a download fee, b) a monthly fee, and/or c) a per-use fee. For example, if a user downloads a BREW application to a mobile station, there may be a download fee, and/or a recurring monthly fee of perhaps $3 per month, and/or a per use fee of perhaps $0.25 per use. This per use fee is in addition to any other applicable communication fees that a wireless carrier may charge, such as fees for using extra minutes.
These BREW application fees may be divided in three ways: part may go to the wireless carrier, part to Qualcomm (the developer of the BREW platform), and part to the developer of the BREW client application (for example, Goodpictures as the third party developer). In practice, these fees would be paid by the user to the wireless carrier (because the wireless carrier already has an established billing relationship with the user), then the wireless carrier may forward some portion to Qualcomm, and finally Qualcomm may forward some lesser portion to Goodpictures
The BREW platform and the associated BREW application download server are Qualcomm properties. Further, Qualcomm typically “owns” the BREW developer relationship, so Goodpictures is effectively a vendor for Qualcomm in this relationship. Qualcomm may “certify” the Goodpictures application as meeting BREW standards, and list the Goodpictures application in the Qualcomm application website for downloading by the mobile station subscriber or user.
At present, mobile station subscribers or users using BREW applications are sending/receiving multimedia messages using a direct IP connection to third party websites/web servers. The users are subject to a monthly recurring charge, and/or a per-use fee for each related multimedia message. However, applications that bill per-use typically have to prepay for uses (for example, BREW ringtone applications). Prepaying for per-use is inconvenient, because it takes time and effort to prepay, because it is difficult to predict (for example) how many new ringtones a user will download over the next month, and because users do not like prepaying. Thus, such there is no convenient real-time transaction based billing model for such message transactions. This lack of real-time transaction based billing is a problem.
In addition the above three billing models, this application presents additional models (fourth and fifth) which are new, and are enabled by this application.
A fourth billing model (new) for BREW applications is free (free download with free usage). In this model, a third party may develop a BREW application for Verizon Wireless, and Verizon Wireless may offer this BREW application to a mobile station user for free. The mobile station user may use this application without paying any BREW application related communication fees. However, the user will still pay any other standard communication fees that the wireless carrier may charge, such as fees for using extra minutes, or $0.25 per MMS message. Thus, the wireless carrier may find it profitable to buy and then freely distribute BREW applications that encourage wireless communications by the user, particularly MMS messages by the user. Note that the wireless carrier may not be obligated to share any of the MMS revenue with Qualcomm.
A fifth billing model (new) for BREW applications is MMS based usage billing. In this model, a wireless carrier may monitor BREW related MMS communications, and may charge additional BREW application related monthly or per user fees. These additional fees may or may not be shared with Qualcomm, depending upon the licensing agreement for the BREW platform.
The fourth and fifth billing models send and receive BREW application related MMS messages through a Mobile Message Service Center (MMSC). Thus, the MMSC is able to create billing records to support real-time transaction based billing, both for standard communication fees and for BREW related additional fees.
F. Multimedia Message Service Security
In recent years, Verizon Wireless has developed a picture messaging service called Multimedia Message Service (MMS) which is implemented using a native application or client built on the mobile station by an Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) for Verizon Wireless.
MMS communications from a mobile station to a third party website are relatively secure for at least three reasons. First, the mobile station does not interface directly with the third party website. Second, the Verizon Wireless MMSC is a network element that ensures the user is authorized for sending/receiving multimedia content. Third, the MMSC may interface with the third party website via a secure connection such as a VPN or a Dedicated Line, which ensures that the message is protected after it leaves the Verizon Wireless network. Additionally, MMS communications facilitate creating billing records to support real-time transaction based billing.
E. Need Exists
Hence, a need exists for MMS based communications to BREW applications for at least the following reasons: to provide secure communications between a mobile station and a third party website or web server, to support real-time transaction based billing, and to reduce or avoid communication fees (transport based royalties) paid to Qualcomm by Verizon Wireless (or by the user) for BREW application based communications.